Wednesday, 3 October 2012

In my kitchen - October 2012

I have become rather fond of Celia's In My Kitchen event where bloggers invite readers to peek into their kitchen. I have had some fun foodie shopping outings lately and will share these here. Expect to see some of the food and stuff appearing in other posts.

Starting with the Cupcake decorating kit above. It is from the supermarket. Sylvia begged me to buy it for Dolly's birthday. I am glad Dolly had the joy of seeing these on the strawberry cupcakes before she disappeared.

As usual there has been some craft in our kitchen. Here is a selection of greeting cards that Sylvia and I have made lately.

I love a dense fruity loaf of bread. This fig and walnut loaf comes from Pastry Art Design in Smith Street Collingwood. Great for breakfasts!

These silicone crown cupcake moulds were bought on a shopping trip to Officeworks when it was hard getting Sylvia out the door. Not one of the moulds has yet been used to bake cupcakes. If you looked inside them you would probably see a little ladybug. I didn't buy the packet of ladybug erasers. A kind stranger paid for them for us. Sylvia was insisting on buying them and I didn't have the cash.

Liptons Strawberry and Dragronfruit Ice Tea. Why they call it virgin daiquiri, I am not sure. I can tell you that it was delicious. Pink, not too sweet and wonderfully refreshing.

Here is my haul from St Kilda Farmers Market where we lost Dolly. Only the flowers were bought after we noticed her missing and started our heartbreaking search. The flowers were cheering and were great in blog photos. When I finally threw them out, Sylvia took away a bowlful of petals to play with. We also bought beetroot, kale, rainbow baby carrots, avocado, asparagus, Pink Lady apples, vegetable fingers, and delicious soft liquorice that we all ate at the break of Sylvia's first proper concert (Raising the Roof) at Hamer Hall on the weekend.

Another market haul. Fitzroy Market is more car boot sale than food market. I love that they have veg sausages at the BBQ and vegan cupcakes. The lace cloth was bought a few months back at the market. More recently we bought the green beads for craft, some dorky spectacles for Sylvia's dress-up box, a pink flower that took my fancy and a pretty plate that you will see more of.

Spring means a bike service. After dropping off the bike, we visited Radical Grocery in Brunswick. The Alter Eco Dark Quinoa chocolate was a surprisingly (but delicious) dark dark chocolate with lovely crunchy quinoa crisps. The Wot No Dairy apricot yoghurt was disappointing. More on the rice milk white chocolate soon. The popcorn has given us a new love in life. The rice malt syrup is yet to be used but I have had it before and loved it. Oh to be able to visit Radical Grocery more often!

I also found myself at David Jones Food Hall recently. (In addition to delicious salty sweet popcorn) I finally bought a tin of pumpkin puree for research purposes. I grew up on fresh wedges of pumpkin. The idea of tinned pumpkin just seems so strange but I often see it in American recipes. I am curious. Does anyone have a good vegan pumpkin pie recipe?

We visited the Tokuya Japanest $2 shop in Northland Shopping Centre recently. It is a veritable goldmine of treasures. While Sylvia was fascinated by the little bells on keychains, I loved all the sushi moulds and the nori cutters.

Lastly, we had a trip down Brunswick Street recently where I bought Sylvia a lollypop and a box of macarons. They weren't cheap but I feel like these wooden ones will last longer and be better for her health. Aren't they gorgeous!

This post is part of Vegan Month of Food October 2012. Go to my Vegan MoFo list for more of my Vegan MoFo posts. (NB All the food is vegan in this post, with the possible exception of the fruit bread because I didn't ask.)

33 comments:

You've been busy! Tea looks nice. It;s a nice picture of your life; thoughtful, taking time to do things and taking the time and effort to do them well. Heartening where in London the majority of people have no time for anything but work that there's another way to live.

A lovely post and I WISH we had a $2 Japanese shop! Looks like the son and heir and his girlfriend are going to have to head out of their inner city lair and go hunting for mumsy and her need for all things Japanese. :)

Oooh, that bread looks good, Johanna! And I adore poppies, they're my favourite flower! I'm so sorry you lost Dolly though. Can't wait to see what you do with the little rabbit and teddy moulds! :) Thanks for playing! x

I love that the cute cupcake moulds are getting used for anything but cupcakes! It's a bit sad that your lovely farmers market haul photo has been marred by the loss of Dolly. Has Dolly V2 arrived yet?

Thanks Mel - I was thinking the cupcake moulds might see cake batter one of these days but they will probably be lost by the time I have the urge. It is sad that I think of dolly with the farmers market - eagerly waiting for new dolly's arrival - should be soon touch wood

Thanks Chele - I love seeing others kitchens in this challenge which is why I started joining in and then realised it gave me a change to talk about some of the stuff in the kitchen that only gets a passing look in

What a wonderful collection of foods and items (and drinks for that matter - I've never seen that iced tea!). I love the look of that fruit bread and your market haul is inspiring. That quinoa dark chocolate is one of my favourites too :)

Thanks Kari - the quinoa chocolate went rather too quickly - my mum was surprised that sylvia loved it because it is so dark - reminded me how little I liked dark chocolate as a child and how adult it seemed - if you find the ice tea try it - it is so good

Lots of nice things! I have those egg molds, but I wish we had a $2 Japanese shop, a friend sent me mine. I did cook up some pumpkin last year to compare it to the tinned that I grew up with. I think the flavor was there, but the biggest difference is the texture, but then when you bake with it it's not so different in baked goods. When we make sweet potato pie we don't use tinned sweet potatoes :) It just so easy to have pumpkin anything, anytime of year.

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.